Crimes of the Future

With this year's CRIMES OF THE FUTURE,  we are back in David Cronenberg's preferred domain - the realm of medical science and "body horror."   After years of what I considered to be off assignments such as COSMOPOLIS and MAPS TO THE STARS,  the writer/director has once again embraced the often literal dissection of biological processes and their intertwine with culture.  Social, artistic, political, financial.   It's good to be there again, though the twisted, sometimes disgusting manifests of this brand of cinema feel incomplete this time.  Even sterile.  When a line such as "surgery is the new sex" is uttered, one would expect, from Cronenberg especially, a vivid follow through.

Earlier this year, the film was predicted by pundits and those associated with its production to prompt audience walk-outs.  This is probably some of the most encouraging press a Cronenberg movie can receive.   I was expecting a near unwatchable orgy of unpleasantness, but even in his most difficult works this has not really been his style.  And this time, things are surprisingly, relatively restrained. 

Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux are Saul and Caprice, performance artists.   It is sometime in the future and their shows consist of Caprice's surgical removal of Saul's innards in front of an audience.  This is possible as Saul suffers from a syndrome in which his evolutionary development of said organs is massively accelerated.  This necessitates a special diet and rather odd bed.  He is of particular interest to the National Organ Registry, whose staff consists of enthusiastic investigators named Whippet (Don McKellar) and Timlin (Kristen Stewart) and is housed in an office that looks like that of a mid twentieth century private eye in a film noir.  Timlin expresses more than scientific curiosity and seems eager to try out the "old sex" with Saul.

In a parallel story that will dovetail, we follow the leader of a group of radical evolutionists named Lang (Scott Speedman) who produces weird foodstuffs that look like candy bars but are actually toxic waste.  The cultists live on these bars as their digestive systems have been modified to allow the consumption of plastic.  Lang's young son Brecken (Sozos Sotiris) - in what is likely the moment that folks thought would cause moviegoers to bolt out of their seats -  is smothered to death by his mother Djuana (Lihi Kornowski) after she finds him eating the refuse basket in the bathroom.  The final straw for her offspring, who she considered a "thing" rather than a human.  The first ever to be born with an evolved digestive system.  For this reason, Lang wants Saul and Caprice to do an autopsy on him for their next public act.

There are also these two odd girls running around killing people with power drills.  One of them, Berst (Tanaya Beatty) appears to be channeling Jeff Goldblum.   With that and several other moments, it seems that with CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (which has no relation to his 1970 film of the same name) Cronenberg has created a sort of summary of his career.  There are nods to just about all of his body horror works.  

My take on the film? A sly satire on art, what comprises it, how it is accepted.  Its inevitable merging with medical science.  From this we get commentary on law enforcement, mass production, legal rights, identity, conspiracy theories, playing God, privacy.  Issues that will only grow more salient with time.  I wish Cronenberg had explored the evolution of sexuality a bit more.  With this and some other deficiencies CRIMES OF THE FUTURE comes up short, but is rarely less than fascinating.  And is beautifully shot by Douglas Koch and nicely (if familiarly) scored by Howard Shore.